Strategist Bardella: Dems, not GOP, Driving 'Impeachment' Meme

While Republican leaders repeatedly say that impeaching President Barack Obama is a non-starter, top Democrats in Congress and the White House keep flogging the idea to rile their base, a GOP strategist told Newsmax TV on Thursday.

"This is desperation, personified, and we've seen this playbook before," Kurt Bardella, a former staffer with Rep. Darrell Issa who runs a strategic communications firm, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner.

The latest dire warning came from the number three House Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, who tweeted on Monday that his GOP colleagues will impeach the president after the mid-term elections if they retain their House majority.

Bardella called it a replay of scare tactics that Democrats employed in 2010 when they were trying, and failing, to hold the House.

"Democrats everywhere were saying — including Jim Clyburn — 'If Republicans get control of the House, Darrell Issa will subpoena everything under the sun. He'll go after Barack Obama's birth certificate.'

"Here we are four years later. Hasn't happened," said Bardella.

Yet high-ranking Democrats including White House spokesman Josh Earnest continue to point to isolated instances of House GOP backbenchers raising impeachment, said Bardella.

"That tells you exactly who's driving this," he said.

Bardella said that portraying the president as an imminent target of GOP-led impeachment serves two purposes: motivating die-hard Democrats to contribute, and vote, in November; and distracting the country from the president's abysmal record on the economy, foreign policy, immigration and health care.

"And it says a lot that when you have nothing good to say about … the policies of the administration, the policies of [Majority Leader] Harry Reid and the Democrat-controlled Senate, that the last resort that they have — to try to demonize Republicans — is to use scare tactics, [and] manufacture this ridiculous idea that House Republicans will try to impeach President Obama.

"Every leader in the House has said, 'This isn't happening. This is not a reality.' That hasn't stopped [Democrats] from using this extreme rhetoric," said Bardella.

While Republican leaders repeatedly say that impeaching President Barack Obama is a non-starter, top Democrats in Congress and the White House keep flogging the idea to rile their base, a GOP strategist told Newsmax TV on Thursday.